Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving! I am wishing all of you a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday full of peace, love, friends and family!
There’s a Warrior in All of Us
I began my journey into the world of martial arts twelve years ago at the tender young age of 47. I guess this means I am admitting how old I am, even though I know that a lady never tells her age. However, no one has ever accused me of being a lady. Actually, someone once did a long time ago, but that’s a story for another day.
Anyway, it takes a tremendous amount of courage for a woman to walk into a testosterone-infested, male-dominated dojo and give strange men permission to attack them. It also requires an enormous amount of trust. I had neither, and there are still times when I have issues with both. However, what I lack in courage and trust, I have always been able to compensate with humor and false bravado.
When I began training, there wasn’t a high ranking female student...
October’s Bright Blue Weather
“O suns and skies and clouds of June, And flowers of June together; Ye cannot rival for one hour, October’s bright blue weather…. When loud the bumblebee makes haste, Belated, thriftless vagrant; And goldenrod is dying fast, And lanes with grapes are fragrant…
When gentians roll their fingers tight, To save them for the morning; And chestnuts fall from satin burrs, Without a sound of warning….
When on the ground red apples lie, In piles like jewels shining; And redder still on old stone walls, Are leaves of woodbine twining….
When all the lovely wayside things, Their white-winged seeds are sowing; And in the fields still green and fair, Late aftermaths are growing….
When springs run low, and on the brooks, In idle golden freighting; Bright leaves...
Feldenkrais®: The Tables Have Turned
After my interesting experience giving a medical practitioner a Functional Integration lesson, it was my turn to be on the receiving end. When I got to his office he took me into a treatment room and asked me what was wrong with my neck. “Nothing,” I replied. “Huh,” he said, “I see a lot of asymmetries in your cervical spine. You also have really bad posture with a forward head and rounded shoulders, and you slouch, which really surprises me. I would have thought that as a dancer and a Feldenkrais® practitioner you would know better.” He gave me a penetrating look while he said this. Good grief!
To say that his statements were jarring to my nervous system was the understatement of the century. A familiar but long abandoned pattern of negative self-talk...
Feldenkrais®: A Lesson On Time
I recently met an alternative medical practitioner who was surprised and delighted to discover that a Feldenkrais practitioner worked in the same office building that he did. He went out of his way to introduce himself and welcome me to the building. I thought it was funny considering I have been there for over nine years, but some things do take time.
A Feldenkrais® Free For All….
In my enthusiasm to spread the word of Feldenkrais to the general public, I have found myself in some very strange situations. My most frustrating (but eye-opening) experience occurred when I accepted an invitation to teach a class at a health care clinic for their patient appreciation day.
The clinic was on the second floor of an office building, just above a beautiful atrium with an open staircase. The clinic didn’t have enough floor space to teach a class, but the owner and I decided that the large space at the top of the stairs would be perfect. I noticed that the acoustics were exceptional, which would make it easy for the participants to hear the lesson as I kept my voice soft and non-jarring to their nervous systems. Or so I thought.
The day of the party was a clear and beautiful...
Breaking Up Is Hard To Do….Or Not
Before I discovered Feldenkrais, I often found myself in situations that weren’t working out for me, or doing things I didn’t want to do, just out of habit. Even if I wanted to change, I couldn’t figure out how. The most glaring example was with my best and dearest friend. We met in ballet class 25 years earlier and established an unlikely friendship. She was quiet, reserved, shy, and highly intelligent. I was loquacious, demonstrative, outgoing, and just smart enough to get by. For some reason we got along famously.
However, over the years what had begun as a wonderful friendship based on mutual support, respect, and caring somehow turned into one that was demanding, controlling, and manipulative. Our social interactions left me feeling drained, depleted, and even angry....
Opportunities to Learn are Everywhere!
One of the greatest rewards of being a Feldenkrais practitioner are the wonderful students you meet along the way. Occasionally, a student becomes a friend and ends up being the teacher. You never know when, or how, it will happen.
A few years ago I worked with a psychotherapist who specialized in Equine Therapy. He loved Feldenkrais (of course), and asked me to teach a workshop to a group of therapists at his ranch. It presented a fabulous opportunity for me as well as for the entire Feldenkrais community. You see, as a practitioner, I feel it is my duty to get out reach out to a variety of different populations and “spread the word of ‘Krais,” so to speak.
The workshop was a huge success, and when it was over I began packing up my materials so I could leave. Suddenly...
Feldenkrais® Training: Who’s that lady?
My Feldenkrais training was held in a beautiful old dance hall, complete with hardwood floors, huge windows, gorgeous chandeliers, and small mirrors strategically placed around the room. It was a beautiful room, and the perfect venue for our training.
We often had visitors who would come to spend a day or even an entire week with us. Sometimes we only had one or two strangers in the room; other times we had a full house. Each morning the visitors were invited to stand up and introduce themselves before we proceeded with our first lesson of the day.
In the middle of my third year of training, I arrived at the dance hall to an unusually crowded room. I wondered who all those people were and what they were doing there. I felt annoyed and irritated to see so many interlopers in my training....
Finding Feldenkrais® and a Leg to Stand On
A funny thing happened on my way to becoming a Feldenkrais® practitioner; I stopped stretching. When I went to ballet class, instead of going through my habitual stretches, I would slowly roll around on the floor before class. My fellow dancers would give me strange looks and nudge each other. One actually laughed out loud. However, no one thought to ask me what I was doing, which was fine with me. I was simply enjoying the experience of finding myself in a visceral and organic way.
When I stood up, I always felt refreshed, alert, and ready to start class. I even felt more flexible, which is weird, considering that I didn’t partake of all the goofy stretches I had done for over thirty-five years. However, if you think about it, it was even more strange that I would keep on doing them...
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